Fortune Tellers, Prophets and Baba Vanga

The topic of fortune telling using tarot cards is controversial; some believe it’s a legitimate use of the cards while others citing ethical concerns do not.

The former camp points to long held traditions, while the latter sees the cards as an aid used to inform choices. They assert that the cards, and those who read them, would would never, or at least should never, interfere with someone’s free will or exploit their expectations.

In Holistic Tarot, author Benebell Went puts it this way: “Having grown up in the Chinese/Taiwanese culture, I was routinely exposed to East Asian fortune-telling practices: face reading; palmistry; Ba Zi, which is the practice of revealing your destiny through date and time of birth; and many more. What I have learned is that fortune-telling is a rudimentary understanding of the cosmic forces that govern us.”

So too are the various categories of western divination. A better question, therefore, is this: is it possible to read the future at all? While I don’t think tarot, per se, is able to peer into the future, there are certain individuals who do have this ability. They are called clairvoyants. Many clairvoyants employ tarot cards as a sort of “jumping off point” used to hone their psychic readings.

You could be one such individual. If you continue to use Chrysalis, you likely soon will be. That is unless you harbor disabling religious beliefs or have an innate psychological resistance to precognition. Chrysalis was designed to increase one’s intuitive skills and psychic abilities; to activate one’s Third Eye and awaken the Higher Self. This is what spiritual formation and the Hero’s Journey in tarot is all about. Precognition ability naturally accompanies spiritual growth. They travel hand in hand.

Marie Laveau was known in New Orleans spiritual circles as a Watcher, a mystic who walked hand in hand with spiritual realm. There are other watcher-type characters in Chrysalis. We know them by names like The Visionary, The Illusionist, Morgan le Fay and Papa Legba. All our Chrysalis shamans, such as those depicted on the Nine of Stones and Eight of Mirrors, are also watchers.

Watchers are prophets. They are the Sybils, Pythias and sundry other oracles who have been called on throughout history to reveal what the future holds. This tradition continues today; almost every village in Tibet, for example, has its own official oracle, and the Dalai Lama himself consults the Nechung Oracle (short video) annually.

So where does this secret information come from and why? It comes from the Akasha, a Sanskrit word that means aether, although it is known by other names such as the fifth element, Spirit. The aether, which is an energy field, connects each of us to everything else in the universe and to all information contained in the Akashic Record. This information can aid us, warn us of impending danger, enlighten us and challenge us.

Consider the Akashic Record an energetic field or database that functions like a cybernetic feed back – feed forward loop. For example, Earth’s Collective Unconscious, home to the archetypes, informs the Akashic Record and is in turn informed by the Akashic Record. In fact, the Akashic Record is a universal memory bank that accounts for everything that has ever happened in our universe. It can be accessed by mystics and other awakened souls and used to make fairly accurate predictions about the future, but it is not omniscient (all knowing) – nor for that matter is anything else.

This brings us to Baba Vanga. She’s been in the news of late because of some predictions she purportedly made concerning the times we live in. You can read about her in this New York Post article, which includes her photograph. I chose Storyteller’s image for this section because she and Baba Vanga share a great deal in common.

Storyteller is Chrysalis Tarot’s quintessential watcher, and arguably its preeminent spiritual presence. Like Marie Laveau and Morgan le Fay, Storyteller keeps the center of her being on the surface of an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Her mind is always still, uncluttered and free of ego fostered delusion, therefore an ASC is readily attainable.

Suffice it to say that one cannot be a prophet and proclaim future probabilities unless capable of entering an ASC either through deep meditation, yoga, an entheogen or a shamanic ritual. This truism would most certainly exclude boardwalk fortune tellers who read tarot as if it were some form of arcane cryptology. They would be known as false prophets or charlatans.

In closing, it’s worth noting that classical prophecy, which often asserts that bad things are going to happen unless ways are mended, is, in many cases, simply an interpretation of history and pattern recognition. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with divine retribution, which doesn’t happen, and everything to do with humanity heaping misfortune upon itself, or experiencing a natural calamity.

It’s worth noting that we reckon time in a linear fashion, always moving from past to present to future; from cause to effect. This ubiquitous viewpoint has, however, recently come under scientific scrutiny; theories of backward causation are being explicated. The New Physics represents cutting edge scientific thought, not New Age woo-woo. I personally regard the phenomenon of Jungian synchronicity (meaningful coincidence) as a natural, psychokinetic concomitant to backward causation.

For example, say you are earnestly pursuing a spiritual path that leads to your destiny (Higher Self). You will experience synchronicities more often than, say, someone mired in ego-consciousness. Your future Higher Self acts as a causal agent for this synchronicity. Consequently, when you experience synchronicity, you know you’re making serious spiritual progress. We should always contemplate meaningful synchronous events in our daily lives. Your future is trying to tell you something.